this one goes out to the one I love...

Happy Valentine's Day! I am so blessed to have married my soulmate and my best friend.  He still gives me butterflies like the day we met.  So cheesy...but so true. 

Honey....I know you don't like me posting photos of you on my blog but you are too cute not to share with the world so hopefully you won't mind me posting this one photo on Valentine's Day!

you're the PEANUT to my BUTTER ,

you're the STAR to my BURST,

you're the M to my M,

you're the POP to my TART,

you're the MILKY to my WAY,

you're the FRUIT to my LOOP,

you're the MILK to my DUDS,

you're the LUCKY to my CHARMS,

you're the ICE to my CREAM,

but mostly....

you're the BEST to my FRIEND

- Unknown



pinterest love.....

Everyone is on Pinterest these days and there is no wonder why.  It's AWESOME!!  And somewhat addicting as well.  I'm sure if you are anything like me you have many folders on pinterest.  Heck, I even have a folder for haircuts and styles I love.  Yeah, it's that bad.  But it could be worse, right????

Every Friday I am gonna attempt to share with you some of my latest Pinterest LOVE.  Here is what I'm loving today.

1.

(must do this in my bedroom using a poem my husband wrote me)

2.

3.

(part of my inspiration for mykitchen remodel)

4.

(this is hilarious, seriously)

5.

6.
(made these with my son's boy scout den and they turned out so cute)

7.

8.
(my kids would LOVE this)

9.

(cute for Valentine's Day, but I might need a shorter heel)

10.

 

can you HANDLE this?

The next thing we handled on our kitchen remodel to buy list were the kitchen cabinet handles. Get it...handled?!  Ha Ha Ha...I crack myself up sometimes.  Ok, enough cheesy word play.

I have always loved the cup pull style handle.  They are so classy yet functional.

We used them in our bathroom remodel and I still love the way they dress up the vanity. 

So clearly I wanted to use them for the drawer handles in the kitchen, right?  Of course.  And because I shopped around for the best deal and paid under $2 shipped per handle I was overwhelmed with joy when I found out the same store on e-bay was still selling these pulls. (doing my happy dance)  In the few stores I shopped around for similar handles they were priced from $5 and up. 

Here is the link to the actual pulls I purchased on e-bay. 

As soon as they came in my husband put them on my freshly painted cabinets.  What a difference some shiny new hardware makes, right?

We kept the round knobs for the cabinets.  They are a satin nickel finish and match nicely with my new cup pull handles.



And here are some other really cool handles we came across while shopping for handles.

1.

2.

3. (my hubby's favorite)

4.

5. (looooove the glass)

6. (have these and LOVE them)

1. 2 3. 4. 5. 6.

Not all primers are created equal

I have painted a good amount of furniture and my biggest complaint is that the paint often chips.  I have tried many different primers and approaches to painting but the end result is often the same...the paint chips.

And then I came accross this blog and decided to go ahead and try the bonding primer.  What did I have to lose, right?  I chose Valspar because I buy my pain from Lowe's.

It turns out bonding primer does actually bond pretty well to what you are painting.  So I knew that I would use it to repaint my cabinets.  The last thing I wanted was any chipping after all my hard work.

The process of painting the cabinets went like this:

1. clean cabinets
2. lightly sand the surpface with a 220 grit sand paper
3. wipe clean
4. paint with bonding primer using a small foam roller to avoid brush marks
5. let dry (dries fast)
6. 2nd coat
7. dry
8. and paint my white satin finish paint on the cabinets (2 coats)

Yes, decided to paint our white cabinets white again.  You just can't go wrong with white cabinets.

Check out how Young House Love paints their cabinets.

320 Sycamore also shares her tips for painting cabinets

kitchen budget

We have decided to keep our original cabinet to save some money and because they are solid wood and with the exception of needing some new paint in good condition.  This will save us a ton of money.  However we will be replacing the following:

1. countertops
2. tile backsplash
3. sink
4. cabinet harware

We will be adding the following to give our cabinets a more custom look:

1. crown molding to the top of the cabinets
2. beadboard to the side of the peninsula and a few accent areas
3. a new frame around the fridge

We will be doing all of this with a budget of ...............drumroll please........................

$1,500

Yes, only $1,500. 

You can save a lot of money doing your own work.

We are at it again

We bought this home when I was 6 months pregnant with my daughter.  She is now 2 years old.  In about three years we have managed to make over a dozen updates to our home and continue to work on it weekly.  As rewarding as it may be sometimes it feels like we will never stop working on our home.  Not to mention that having 3 children makes it hard to get much done around here but we do what we can, when we can.  Our last big project was the main bathroom in our home.  You can read about that here.

The truth of the matter is that we actually really enjoy (most of the time) remodeling our home and making it "ours".  A few months back we talked about making some updates to our kitchen but then as usual we got very busy and it was put off.  It wasn't until we had a dishwasher leak that required all new flooring that we realized that NOW is the time to work on the kitchen.

Cue....our next project.  The kitchen.

I'm gonna attempt to blog about the whole process.  I can't make any promises but this is my goal.  I'm often asked how we did something when it comes to remodeling and I find that many people think many simple projects are 'too big' or 'too hard' for them to do themselves so they put it off unti they have the money to pay someone and then it often doesn't get done, right?  Been there.  But have no fear.  If we can do it, so can you.

So let's get started.  Here is our kitchen before we moved in.  The previous owners' style was a little out of date for me but they kept a very tidy and clean kitchen.  Very impressive.

Here are two more views.

And here is our kitchen now.  As you can see we have already started some work (like removing some end caps at the end of the counter).  We also replaced all of the appliances.  I wish my counters were as clean as the previous homeowners. (sigh)

So there you have it.  The beginning of our kitchen remodel.

Christmas 2011

Every year I like to post pictures of our home all Christmas"ed" out.  Unfortunately this year I wasn't able to go all out because we had to replace our floors due to a water leak.  In fact we are still installing the baseboards but at least our flooring is in and it's quite beautiful. 

We hardly have any snow this year.  Just enough to dust the trees until it melts (but I'm not complaining at all).  So here is the front of the house as you enter our main front door.  I'll avoid any snowless brown grass photos for you.  My mother in law and I made this garland many years ago and it's held up so well.  I strung lights on it this year and put it around our planter box.

The snowmen wreath is a University of Arizona wreath which my husband loves to display.  If he had it his way our whole home would be decorated in Arizona Wildcats stuff.

So come on in...

(I made this rag wreath with scraps from a quilt I made the first year we lived in North Dakota.)

The entrance is simple but I love it.  My son made the green wreath on the left.  I'm all about homemade decorations.

And continuing on to our dining area.  On the left we have our Christmas cards on display.

If you sent us a card, then it's on display here.

We love Christmas cards!

I love this little snowman.  He makes an appearance every Christmas.

And into the living room where the stockings are hanging above the tv (since I didn't finish my stocking holder I started this year, shocking...I know).  I don't know why this picture came out crooked.  I'm thinking I was trying to avoid a dog or child from being in the photo. 

They love to sneak in my pictures.

(we watch Elmo daily)

And last but certainly not least...our tree.

It looked so much nicer a few weeks back when I first put it up.  The kids decorated it and did a great job BUT over time my darling 2 year old daughter has added and removed so many ornaments that it's looking a little sad these days.  But at least it's still standing.  I was certain that it was gonna get knocked over a few times.  lol

Well, that's it for us.  I've actually enjoyed keeping the decor simple this year.  Have a

Merry Christmas!